Splinter union pickets Nokia plant
160 employees protested and raised slogans seeking back job
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-11-02 04:53 GMT
Chennai: A splinter group of the Nokia India employees union staged a protest in front of the telecom major’s Sriperumbudur plant on Saturday, seeking back the jobs.A group of 160 employees, who did not give their consent to the severance package at the union meeting on Friday, raised slogans seeking their jobs back. “We want to get an assurance on the job front that we will be given jobs if the plant starts functioning, either by Nokia or by the government or by any other third party,” said Mr Ratnam.
While the splinter group claimed that the 400-odd people who abstained from the Friday meeting were also with them and sought to have an assurance on job surety rather than a priority, the executive committee members of Nokia India Thozhilalar Sangam (NITS) claimed no connection to this. “Going by the union by-laws, a referendum taken at the Friday meeting saw about 360 of the 400 members present agreeing to accept the proposed package.
This would be applicable to all union members as per the union by-laws and this will be implemented,” said Mr Prabhu, general secretary of NITS. Nokia management has also agreed to give preference to its previous employees during recruitment if the factory started functioning again, he added.
However, the splinter group claimed that there has been no official communication on record either about the severance package or the assurance.“Till date, there has been no mail or letter from the company regarding the status. However, an SMS was received by a couple of people yesterday well before the union members met the labour commissioner stating that the severance scheme was open from November 3-10 and a second one stating that we don’t have to come to the factory tomorrow,” said Mr Diwakar.
The first SMS communication from the company HR was on October 27 when it declared no-production days from October 27-31. “In my eight years of service, this is the first time ever that we are getting a HR communications through SMS and not on paper,” he said.